Dreaming of the sea....
As I sit here sweltering in the near 30 degree heat, I'm dreaming wistfully of our family summer holiday to Port Renfrew on Vancouver island, where there was always a gloriously cool sea breeze! You might already have gathered that I am not a fan of the heat. Anything above 25 degrees is getting uncomfortable, and getting past 28 degrees I am one unhappy camper. Give me a sea breeze any day!
Enough grumbling (though you can bet I'll be doing it for the rest of the day under my breath, if not in this post...). Our family of six went on holiday to Port Renfrew this past July, and it was just lovely. We booked a beautiful cottage that fit all of us - no small feat! - that had a beautiful view of the ocean.
The view from the cottage was simply stunning.
View from the deck - I could have spent most of my time here!
One of my favourite photos - there were many fishing boats to watch from the deck.
With the kids in tow, we certainly weren't going to be gazing blissfully at the view all day. We had a lot of fun adventures. We started our trip to a gluten free bakery on the way to the cottage. Bliss! Our youngest son and I both have celiac disease, so to walk into a bakery and know we could actually eat the delicious goodies was wonderful. Origin gluten free bakery has the best carrot cake cupcakes I've ever eaten, let me tell you (and I had more than one just to make sure - purely in the interests of research, naturally.) Just as exciting was purchasing some of their sourdough, something I really miss since I was diagnosed. My son wasn't as keen on the sourdough, but he loved the baguettes!
We did a lot of walking while we were away, which all of us enjoyed. I will state categorically that I do not enjoy hiking, but I loved the walks we went on to reach the beaches around Port Renfrew. You definitely needed to use your muscles, as there was plenty of going up and down hills and scrambling over tree roots, and we all had pleasantly sore muscles after all of the walking. The beaches were worth the scrambling, too. Let me show you a few of them....
Amidst the trees on our way down to China Beach
Can you see the beach through the trees?
Just perfect.
Botanical Beach was our next stop, and we loved every minute of it there. It was a perfect, sunny day with the bluest of blue skies, and no end of interesting creatures to peer at amongst the tide pools. We encountered chitons, sea urchins, sea anemones, plenty of different sea weeds, hermit crabs, and my husband and kids even spotted a whale - which I managed to miss! No matter. I've loved exploring tide pools since I was a kid, and I was more than satisfied with everything I saw.
It was such a beautiful day.
Chiton
There was so much to see and explore.
Sea urchin
My husband and youngest two enjoying the view.
We visited more beaches and did more scrambling, but I'll leave you with one last photo from our trip before I tell you about my adventures in speed run quilting!
I love this photo...it really gives an idea of the height of the trees in the forests around Port Renfrew. Plus it looks just a little bit dramatic!
Now, before we left for this trip, I got the slightly ridiculous idea to make myself a rag quilt to bring along on our trip, figuring it might be nice to use while sitting out on the deck in those sea breezes. I had a layer cake in my stash that was just crying out to be used (I mean, I bought it probably two years ago...it's about time!) This meant that my quilt top fabrics were already pre-cut for my convenience. But I planned to use squares of batting between the top and bottom fabrics so those needed to be cut, and I still had to cut the squares of backing fabric. I only had a few days...could I take inspiration from my speed running son and get it done on time? (Speed running, for those of you who may not have gaming teenagers, is when you play a game and try to beat a level or the whole game as fast as you can. I'm far too inept at video games to attempt that...)
I got cutting...
...and sewing...
...and snipping...
....and managed to finish it before we left! Quilt speed run accomplished.
I didn't have enough of any one solid fabric for the back of my quilt, so this was my solution. I really like how it looks!
And yes, I did get good use out of it. Those ocean breezes could be very cool indeed - but I'm not complaining! I'm happy when it's cool enough to use one of my quilts. Do I recommend speed running a quilt? Nope. Rag quilts are reasonably quick to make, but don't need to be made as quickly as mine. I won't be speed running anymore quilts, but I have to say, it was a fun challenge.
I hope you've all had a chance to enjoy a lovely summer holiday. I'll be back soon with a round up with my summer makes - and there are quite a few of those!
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